I stamped a little bit today. I had to use those new A Muse stamps. They were begging to be used. So after Rebecca stamped a whole picture with it, it was my turn. I chose a real simple layout and POP designer paper.

Of course I had to use my All in a Rowstamp set again. I just can’t help myself.

The card base is a 4 1/4″ x 8 1/2″ piece of whisper white cardstock folded in half. On top of that is a 4″ square of Rose Red Palette O’ Prints paper. The green strip is 1″ x 4″ layered on a 1 3/8″ x 4″ white strip.

Head on over to A Muse Palooza. They have a fun game of secret squares going on!

Hollywood Squares – A Muse Style! We’ve chosen one of our Crew to hold a secret prize. Who do you think has the prize? If you guess the correct A Muse Crew member, you move on to the next round of the game. For round two, we’ll mix things up, add a new prize, and you’ll get to guess again. We’ll keep going until we have one winner who will then receive all the prizes revealed in each round of the game!!

You must be registered at www.amuseapalooza.com to play. To enter, leave a comment on this post with your guess (one entry per person) before this round of the game ends at midnight Pacific time Monday June 4th. Then check back on Tuesday to see if you move on to round two!

For this one I used A Muse’s Bird cage (7-4102C) as focal point. Since I don’t have any birds yet to go with that (I know…crazy), I thought I use the sentiment….Missing you. I stamped it with Karen Forster mini casual Snap stamps on a 3/8″ wide strip. The left side is rounded with the window word punch from Stampin’ Up!

Sentiment and Image are stamped with black Palette inkon Whisper White cardstock. Image is colored in with Copic Markers. The doodle border is made with a black Micron pen.

I didn’t get to stamp at all yesterday. After the whole bird drama, I just didn’t feel like it. I grabbed a book and sat in the backyard.

Here is another card for A Muse’s 4th challenge. I made this one, along with the nurse card and another card I will post tomorrow. When I made these cards I cut my Pristine Paper Salon paper to make enough for three cards. That way I wouldn’t have any left over of the two 6×6 pieces of paper. So you will see the same layout in all three cards, just with different main images.

One A Muse card a day…keeps the doctor away. Okay…cheesy. Just popped into my head. I love that doctor stamp A Muse carries.

For this one I first stamped the little frog (2-2218C) in Black Palette inkon a Whisper White cardstock circle. I masked him off and stamped the Tree Stump (2-7109E) underneath. Next I added some grass with my black journaling marker. Once everything was dry, I colored the image in with my newCopic Markers. I am still playing with them and trying to get used to having so many colors….I made myself a chart so I would have an easier time finding the color I am looking for.

I layered the finished circle on a Whisper White punchout from the Uchida Giga Scallop circle. The card base is a 4 1/4″ x 8 1/2″ Close to Cocoa cardstock folded in half. I sanded my Pristine paper and adhered it to the card base. Next I tied this gorgeous reversible satin May Arts ribbon around the card and layered the image over it with dimensionals.

It took me a while to come up with a phrase for the frog….I am a bit dissappointed that I couldn’t come up with something cooler. I had some suggestive ideas with the word Jump, morbid ones with the word croaked…..but nothing really fun! Let me know if you can think of something.

The sentiment is stamped with 1/4″ Karen Forster casual Snap stamps. I cut a strip of 3/8″ whisper white cardstock, stamped the saying and then rounded the one end with the Window Word Punch from Stampin’ Up!.

I love the little Prego gal (2-3085C) from A Muse. She is just too adorable. I stamped her on Shimmery white cardstock with black Palette inkand colored her skin and hair with aqua painter and classic inks. I stamped her again on POP designer paper and paper pieced her dress. I punched the image out with the large oval punch from Stampin’ Up! and cut closely around it with my decorative scissors.

The card base is again a 4 1/4″ x 8 1/2″ piece of cardstock folded in half. I am stuck on 4 1/4″ square cards at the moment. The patterned paper on the top and middle is from the Gypsy BasicGrey paper pad, the bottom piece is from the POP designer paper pack Stampin’ Up! sells this month.

I stamped congrats from Amazing to Zany on whisper white cardstock and punched it out with the Window Word Punch. The faux stitching lines are stamped in black with a stamp from the set All In A Row.

When I started this card, I thought of adding a different greeting on that little clipboard. lol….But then I went ahead and made a tame version.

The card base is 4 1/4″ x 8 1/2″ of chocolate chip cardstock folded in half. The patterned paper is from Paper Salon Pristine swatches. I sanded the edges, taped them together and added chocolate grosgrain (Stampin’ Up!) and May Arts dotted ribbonaround it.

I made the little clipboard out of True Thyme paper. I used the corner rounder on all four sides and added a punchout from the Round Tab punch on the top. The paper on top of the clipboard is from the Notations designer paper. I punched the left hand side with the spiral Punch.

I stamped Florence, the A Muse Nurse (2-7111E) on a Whisper White oval punchout and colored her with my new copic markers. I layered her on a Giga scallop oval punchout (Uchida) in chocolate chip. That scallop was just a bit too big for my card and image, so I cut it in half, cut 1/2 scallop out and put it back together.

I had this card done yesterday afternoon, but couldn’t decide on a sentiment. I didn’t want to use the regular good old….Happy Birthday or Thinking of you. All I could come up with was….

Plow Away

You plowed me over

So this morning I emailed Charmaine from Oodabug Alley. I knew she would be able to come up with something good. She was playing around with track, plow and crop and thought of “Oh Crop! I missed your birthday!”. I cracked up and knew I wanted to use the crop thing. So here is my card.

I did like “Glad I tracked you down” as a card too. It just limits you more to who to send the card to. (Would be a great card for a head hunter though).

This card started out because I just got my Copic Ciao marker from Kim at My Favorite things Friday afternoon. She has a great deal going on. I still had my A Muse Stampson the table and stamped the little tractor (3-4100C) in black Palette inkon whisper white cardstock. Then I played around with my Markers. I am a little overwhelmed with all the markers I have now (144!!! I got them all and am definitely broke now). I do like the way they color. I will have to play and experiment more with them.

I kinda liked how my image came out and thought it was nice enough to turn into a card. I cut around it leaving about 1/4″ white all around and distressed the cardstock with Stampin’ Up!’s cutting tool kit. I layered it on close to cocoa cardstock and distressed that one as well.

The card base is a 4 1/4″ x 8 1/2″ piece of basic black cardstock. On top is a patterned paper from A Muse. It was a card, but I messed that up with a stamping project who knows when and had only this part left over.

The center layer is Old Olive that I dry embossed with the cuttle bug. I sponged Old Olive all over the dry embossed part, distressed the edges and sponged those as well. I tied May Arts ribbonaround it.

Oh Crop!!! is stamped with Karen Forster small casual snap stamps. Thanks soooo much Charmaine! That totally made this card!

Okay, so sometimes I am a little slow. I saw these banners at other blogs before, but I didn’t really pay attention. Today I read it again. This is so cool! A Muse is holding weekly challenges! You can win free A Muse Merchandise! I love challenges! I love A Muse! I am sooooo in! It’s already the third week that this is going on, but better late then never, right?

I started out with a 5 1/4″ x 10 1/2″ piece of Basic Black cardstock. I cut a 5″ square piece of shimmery white cardstock and stamped the Paisley Background (Stampin’ Up!) with Going Gray classic ink.

I cut a 2 1/4″ piece of brushed silver cardstock and stamped it with Black Palette inkand My Favorite Things“Behind the Scenes” polka dots. I love clear stamps for backgrounds like that. It’s a piece of cake to line the dots up. I taped the silver cardstock on to a bigger black piece of cardstock and cut the edges with decorative scissors. I added black organdy ribbon with silver cord on the top third of that strip.

Today’s color combo for the challenge was: Tempting Turquoise, Rose Red, Apricot Appeal and optional Green Galore. I really liked yesterday’s idea of warm up cards, so I made another one.

As soon as I read the color combo, I knew I would be using some of the Palette O’ Prints designer paper (POP). Two of the four colors in the paper pack are rose red and apricot appeal. If you haven’t gotten a pack yet, it’s so worth the $9.95. Talk to your demonstrator. It’s a great deal.

I started with a 3″x 6″ piece of Tempting Turquoise folded in half. For these small cards I like it better when the opening of the card is on the bottom instead of the right side.

I cut a piece of the tiny dotted Rose Red POP and added a 3/8″ x 2 7/8″ piece of black cardstock over it. I punched the two bottom corners of the POP with the ticket corner punch and tape it to the card. I punched a Giga Scallop Square out of Apricot Appeal cardstock and taped it down on more too the right. On the left of the square I added two Apricot Appeal brads. I cut a 1 9/16″ square of black cardstock and taped it on top of my scallop square. Next I cut a 1 1/2″ square out of shimmery white.

So far it took me no time at all. Now I had to find an image that would go with the colors and the size of the card. Usually I start with picking the stamp set before getting the layout of the card done. It was weird doing it backwards. I finally took my A Muse Art stampsout and found this cute Doggie bag (2-7110E). I stamped it with black Palette ink and colored the image except for the purse with Classic Ink (Apricot Appeal, Chocolate Chip, Creamy Caramel, Rose Red and Tempting Turquoise) and Aqua Painter. Next I stamped skinny oval bl sm (3-5012C) in Sahara Sand under the purse.

I stamped the Doggie Bag again on the same background paper I used for the bottom of the card. I cut the bag pieces out and taped them over my main image to turn the little purse in a polka dotted rose purse.

Under the image I stamped Sweet Friend with stamps from the Everyday Flexible Phrases set. I added a Shimmery White and Apricot Appeal flower punchout from the Spring Flower punch. I sponged the edges of the Apricot Appeal flower with Apricot Appeal Classic ink on taped it on to the white flower. Lastly I added a black brad in the center and taped the flower down with a dimensional.

I have been good the last few days and just worked on things that I had to do. About a week ago I got a doctor stamp from A Muse…every time I look at it I hear “Doctor, doctor, gimme the news, I got a bad case of loving you” in my mind. I can’t help it. I had to make this card, to get the thought of it out of my head.

It’s really simple….but it makes me smile! The saying is made with the bigger Karen Forster Snap stamps. I got those from Ellen Hutson. They are fairly inexpensive and are great for making customized sayings *grin*. Ribbon, like always, is from Starlitstudio. There is also some of my new stardust stickles on the doctor’s head piece. You can’t see it much in this photograph.

Are you singing the song with me now? Doctor, doctor….LOL

Okay…I am going back to work now. I have 9 projects still to make! Over halfway done!